Wireless power standard set

By Communications Sector newsdesk

Published Thursday, September 2, 2010

The Wireless Power Consortium has launched the first version of a standard for wireless inductive charging.

The Qi 1.0 standard, where Qi is pronounced 'chee' and means vital energy, is meant to ensure interoperability between wireless chargers and devices made by different vendors. The Consortium hopes this interoperability will boost the market for wireless battery charging from 100,000 to 100 million units a yera.

“Qi can now be integrated into products. All ingredients for growing the market are now on the table,” said Menno Treffers, chairman of the Wireless Power Consortium. “It took us only 18 months to develop the Qi standard, and less than one month to see the first products certified. Qi is now the industry’s choice for wireless power.”

The more than 55 members of the Wireless Power Consortium include mobile phone, consumer electronics, battery, semiconductor, component and wireless power technology companies. Having ratified a low-power standard, the Consortium will now move on to a medium-power standard for netbooks, laptops, tablets, and power tools.

“Wireless charging has great potential to make charging easier for consumers,” said Petri Vuori, director, mobile solutions R&D, Nokia. “For full user benefit, a standard ensuring cross-compatibility between different manufacturers’ products is required. Qi low power standard specification release 1.0 is a significant milestone in this direction.”

Jim Olsen, VP of marketing at battery maker Energizer, said: “By leading the way with one of the first Qi products – the Energizer Inductive Charger - we are committed to bringing consumers this next generation technology that makes charging devices easier by eliminating cords and clutter."

Joel Huloux, head of standards and industry alliances at ST-Ericsson, said: “The release of the Qi standard is an important step to foster and to accelerate the market adoption of this new, exciting feature which will further simplify the usage of mobile devices in our daily life” said .

Keith Sanders, director for National Semiconductor’s mobile devices power business unit, said: “With the standardisation of the transmit/receive function for wireless charging systems, National Semiconductor and our partner, Sanyo Electric, can move forward and develop customised, Qi-compliant battery power designs for contactless handset charging systems.”

Dave Baarman, director of advanced technologies for Fulton Innovation, said: “Fulton Innovation has been working with wireless power for more than a decade through our eCoupled technology and we’re proud to have played a significant role in helping develop version 1.0 of the Qi standard.”

Patrick Heyer, manager of TI’s charge management product line, said: “As an interoperable standard, Qi will have profound impact on the user experience of wireless power. Texas Instruments is committed to support the standard by offering leading edge solutions to the OEMs.”

Eddy Odijk, vice president standardisation at Philips,said: “USB, GSM, DVB and WiFi are examples of such successful universal standards. As the standard for wireless charging, Qi stimulates the growth of affordable products in the same way and is the most easy to use and versatile solution for our customers.”www.wirelesspowerconsortium.com